Classical frameworks

Evolution of function
• The human body
This
is how basic
fundamental
classical theories
begin.
• Vitruvian man" is a famous drawing and
study of human form by one of the world
's greatest geniuses,the Renaissance
man,Leonardo Da Vinci,who lived in italy
during the late 15th century .The name of
his drawing is actually in honor of Roman
architect Vitruvius who conducted
detailed study of the human body
including the astonishing proportion of
body parts ,which can be demonstrated
and expressed in mathematical equations.
Understanding Society
Based on Nature
Classical social theories do
provide the foundation ,albeit in
controversial fashion,of Social
Science and the "society"that it
wishes to eluducidate.
–Formalized and crystallized
largely in the academic scene and
scientific community of the 19th
through the early 20th
century ,European classical social
theories did tackle what society
means and what constitutes it
Evolution
–Mainly applied in biology ,evolution
states that laws of nature have been
eatablished an enduring and
continuing,albeit very slow,change on
Earth and that includes living
organisms as well as human being.
Change is a slow process of
transformation from simple to complex
suggesting that the
structure ,organization,function,and
characteristics of organisms adapt to
changing times and situations and
development internal mechanisms
(within their bodies or biological
constitution)to ensure reproductive
sucess.
Example
of
evolution
Despite the fact that Charles
Darwin ,a 19th century British
naturalist ,has become the face of
evolutionist thingking in
Europe ,Alfred Russel Wallace —a
British doctor stationed the Indies
—thought of the same ideas about
evolution in the same way that
Darwin did.
Charles Darwin was a
British naturalist who
proposed the theory of
biological evolution by
natural selection.Darwin
defined evolution as"
descent with modification
" the idea that species
change overtime give rise
to new species and have a
common ancestor
Alfred Russel Wallance was a
naturalist,explorer,geographer,anth
opologist,biologist and illustrator he
is best known for independently
conceiving the theory of evolution
through natural selection.
Classical evolutionism states that living
organisms ,over time develop from
simple forms of existence to complex
states of life .The general trend of
evolution ,thus ,is form simplicity to
complexity.The premise was that the
more complex an organism ,the better its
chances of survival and the greater its
capacity to adapt to a changing
environment.
Later on ,evolutionism became
"Darwinism",the name taken from
the british thinker Charles Darwin.It
highlighted and popularized only
some of Darwin's
thoughts ,particularly the"survival of
the fittest "and "natural selection".
Examining it further,this is a
belief predicated on the idea
of "race",which arbitrarily
labels nations of people as
monotholic categories and
with a relative degree of
superiority and inferiority.
 Function
• The theory of "function" was developed
by Herbert Spencer and Emile
Durkheim lived from the late 19th to
the early 20th century.The whole point
of this theory is to liken society to a
living organism —complex body parts
and all—whose objectives are self –
preservation and self–perpetuation .
Applied to society ,the organic analogy
sosociety follows the same logic of a
complex organism whose parts are highly
differentiated yet work
interdependently .The idea of function
follows the growth of Western society
from a predominantly rural and peasant
society to a capitalist and industrialized
"modern"society.
• "Social cohesion "and "integration
"are matter of high importance in
order to keep all the parts
functioning together as a single
unit toward a common goal or
purpose.Society creates structures
in order to give people's lives
meaning and purpose.
Emile Durkheim,the
foremost French
intellectual of the
early 20th
century,studied both
Western and non –
Western societes using
data from empirical
sources which he
called social facts.
 Household –based production
means that the entire process —
from raw materials to distribution pr
consumption of finish product –
occurs in the level of the household
or its immediate community.Thus,it
involes the family or kin–based
labor,which maybe involved in
almost all aspects of the production.
Factory–based production means
that process too large for mere
household to handle and thus
requires bigger labor force and
specialized activities within the
productive process to ensure
efficiency and mass production of
products.
• Modern anthropology ,too,developed with the
help of this idea of function.the question of
what constitutes society and the hidden force
that keeps it together was also asked of non–
Western societies.In fact ,Durkheim ,along with
earlier ethnologists such as James
Frazer ,Edward Tylor,and Robert
Marett ,examined Society according to his belief
that this non–Western societes represent the
most elementary form of social reality ,of how
human society evolved and developed–the very
essence of human organization.
• Culture,defined very broadly by Tylor
,buttresses the idea that is a
structure that constitutes and drives
society.Other formulations of this
idea would differentiate further
workibgs of mind and expressed by a
particular languange.
Edward Tylor,the british
ethnologist ,his book
published in the late
19th century ,provided
first
formal ,academic ,and
scientific definition of
culture.
•Again ,Durkheim was at the
forefront of functionalist perspective
of society using ethnological data
from non–Western examples.He
believes that external social
phenomena are better undestood in
the classifying systems of a
particular group of people,say the
binary categories that they create .
• If members of society,through their
common culture ,worship such
symbols of their world,they do it for
themselves and for their own society
because,after all those symbols are
creations of the people
themselves.Therefore,religion is a
social artifact ,a social structure
manufsctured bu society to maintain
and perpetuate itself.
•His focus was on ideas rather than on
social structures .In other
words,structures are not only the
ones that are important in society but
also meanings that people hold about
what theu do and what they think
Since social structures are product of
our imagination ,an interpretative
sociological analysis is necessary.
 The Notion of function

• Dealing with the question "what is

the nature of human beings within
the context of society?prepsupposes
an asumption that we already know
what society is .Hence key ideas
around the notion of function
developed as a concrete contribution
follow-up to the earlier formulations
of function.
–The emerging social science of
that era–late 19th to early 20th
centuries –endaeored to
characterized in tangible terms
through comparative analysis
the role that function plays in
the existence of humans and
human institutions in society.
The ensuing paradigm became
functionalism(added "ism"suggesting
that this has already beome a
movement or a school of thought)and
also its
variant ,structural,functionalism.Both
permutations of functionwere
pioneered by British
intellectuals ,namely ,Bronislaw
Malinowski and A.R.Radcliff –Brown.
• Bronislaw Malinowski –was a
Polish who made a name in British
intellectual community when he
developed and pioneered functionalism
in the rising British School of Social
anthropology.He also served as the first
Chair in Anthropology at the london
School Economics.Meanwhile ,other
British social anthropologist also
developed ideas around the notion of
function ,which also known as Structura
• Functionalism–states that what keeps
society together isthe function or role
that all parts of a system
perform ,assert ,and play in order to
preserve ,maintain,and sustain society
for posterity .No society would want to
destroy itself so that each and
everypart,institution and sector,must
perform ,expected roles and function.
• Meanwhile,structural functionalism of
Radcliffe –Brown follows the
Durkheimian paradigm of focusing on
underlying structures that support the
whole fabric of society.Units of society
such as the family,organizations,and
groups are studied in order to get a
sense of
nerwork ,interdependence ,and
connection among the parts of society.